Product photography for e-commerce and marketplaces

A good e-commerce product photo lets the shopper understand the product as if they were holding it. That comes not from individual beautiful shots but from a repeatable standard across the whole catalogue: the same background, the same light, the same angle set and an orderly file structure. Marketplace technical rules change, so always check each platform's current guidelines as well.

Consistency: background and lighting standards

When products sit side by side on a category page, inconsistency is obvious. Warm next to cool, close-up next to wide: the store looks careless. Before shooting, write a style guide:

• A plain, usually white or light neutral background for the main image
• A fixed lighting set-up and white balance, ideally documented with photos and measurements
• How much of the frame the product fills and how shadows should look
• Fixed references for camera height and angle

The guide lets you match the look months later when new products arrive.

Which angles do you need?

The customer cannot turn the product around, so the photos must. A typical core set:

1. Front main image
2. Three-quarter view (shows volume)
3. Side and back views
4. Top view (especially for flat items and sets)
5. Packaging and what is in the box

For cosmetics, personal care and electronics, also photograph labels, ingredient panels and ports: the surfaces people look for before deciding.

Detail and scale shots

Many returns come down to "it wasn't what I expected". Detail shots show material, texture, stitching and finish. Scale shots fix size perception: a product in a hand, next to a familiar object or in its place of use makes the numbers in a size chart meaningful. Dimensions overlaid on an image also work well, but check marketplace rules on text and graphics in the main image.

Lifestyle images

Lifestyle images show the product in use and in the customer's world. They explain purpose, carry the brand's tone and can be reused in social media and ads. They should not replace the main image; place them after the studio shots and frame them so the product is clearly visible. Models, locations and props that fit the target audience matter more than any single beautiful frame.

File names, alt text and image SEO

Images are content for search engines too. Google uses surrounding text, file names and alt text to understand images. Practical rules:

• File names: descriptive, consistent names such as "brand-product-name-colour-front.jpg" instead of "IMG_4821.jpg"
• Alt text: describe what is in the image in a short, natural sentence; no keyword stuffing
• Size and format: archive the high-resolution master and publish compressed web versions in modern formats
• Page speed: lazy-load gallery images and load the main image with priority

Marketplace expectations

Marketplaces commonly require a plain background for the main image, the product filling most of the frame, minimum resolution and aspect ratio, and may restrict logos, text and promotional badges on the main image. These rules differ between platforms and change over time. Before shooting, read the current image guidelines in each seller centre and plan the shoot to meet the strictest rule, so other versions can be derived by cropping.

How Grafikare approaches it

Before shooting, we prepare a visual style guide and angle list based on the brand and its sales channels. We document the studio set-up so later shoots match, and deliver folders sized per platform with descriptive file names.